Reply from theProletaryEditorial Board to Questions Put by Comrade “Worker”[1]

Published:Proletary, No. 13, August 22 (9), 1905.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 9,

      page190.Translated:The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius KatzerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

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Fromthe Editors.We reply to the comrade’s questions:

1) yes, it will both lead and govern, pending convocation of a
popular constituent assembly;

2) in circumstances in which this participation
will ensure the possibility of “a relentless struggle against all
counter-revolutionary attempts, and also of defence of the independent
interests of the working class” (from the resolution of the Third
Congress);

3) the Third Congress resolution on insurrection speaks clearly of the
necessity “to explain to the proletariat by means of propaganda
and agitationnot onlythe political significancebutthe practical-organisational aspect of the impending
armed uprising”. This means that the political consciousness of
the masses must be developed, and the political significance of the
uprising must be made clear to them. That, however, is not enough. The
masses must be called upon to begin an armed struggle and at once to
arm and organise in contingents of the revolutionary army. Further, we
must tell the author of the letter that an explanation of the
resolutions of the Congress and the Conference regarding a provisional
revolutionary government is given in a pamphlet by N. Lenin,Two
Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.Finally, we can say with reference to the split that the author’s
indignation is perfectly justified. We advise him to work for general
recognition of single rules for Party organisations, and to do that
regardless of all intellectualist plaints of both the fist from above
and the fist from below, work towards that end not secretly, not
through intrigues, or by founding new groups or a new party, but
openly, directly, within the framework of any
R.S.D.L.P. organisation.

[1]The present article is a reply to a letter fromA Workerfrom Dvinsk. The writer posed the following questions to the Editorial
Board ofProletary, with reference to the decisions of the
R.S.D.L.P.’s Third Congress:

1) “What role will be played by a provisional
government; will it guide or rule the country, or do neither?

2) Under what
circumstances is participation of proletarians in a provisional government
possible?

3) What is all this agitation and propaganda about an insurrection?”